Hello and welcome to my series called Word Not World Series, an episodical poetry anthology inspired by the words you requested from a picture I posted on my Instagram story. The most recent installment featured this beautiful picture below:
(Image found on Pinterest, not made by me, but inspirational all the same!)
Constellations
(Word: Starlight)
She was dressed in starlight and I mapped out the constellation that she made up by traipsing around her curves with my hands as we twisted into the gravity of bedsheets.
*
Content
(Word: Sparkle)
Like a moth engulfed in flame or a dragon in its trove,
she shines, sparkles, glints, glows,
content in her place of this universe,
this wink from a god,
this stitch in time,
evolved from her tribulations
into the person she is happy to become.
*
St. Lucy
(Word: Light)
Lucy would not be conquered or caged like the other maidens in her village had been.
She would not pay her debt in marriage with her body,
she would not be kissed
or have fingers imprint into her cells
or be bound to the earth with a ring,
for she was mean to go to Heaven,
not to be rooted in her purgatory,
so she wasn’t afraid as the flames lapped at her flesh,
licking the freckles that dotted her cheeks,
her eyes staring at the edge of the pyre,
concentrated at the men behind her
who would watch her come undone in the light,
she would be free,
and she would have her mercy.
*
Nyx
(Word: Sorceress of the Night)
The Sorceress of the Night pads through the dreams of the world,
wandering behind the closed eyes of men,
her duties include ferrying crickets from dew,
ushering mice into thorns and not raptors claws,
and anticipating the cackle of Dawn
as she cracks the world open with her whips of blaze.
The Sorceress frets at the head of her Coven,
Moon, who is clouded in judgement, obscured by her scythe phase,
fragmented, cold, callused,
ravenous by her craters,
she is distant.
Even so,
the Sorceress whispers to her,
to give the world one more hour of peace.
*
Fang
(Word: Gallant)
Fang they called her,
who cuts down any man that would dare to slay a dragon, witch, or harpy,
mythical creatures who traded their mortality for magic to save themselves from being ravaged by possessed hands or singed by the hot breath of mead drunk men.
Dressed in white armor polished mulberry red,
the same shade wolf tongues bleed as they are severed mid lie
she walks the wilds, blade in hand
as she patrols,
dreaming of the day that dragons can molt their chain mail
and spin with her in cotton dresses around a flame that is estranged from them.
*
Hope
(Word: Hope)
Hope is a thorn in my side,
prodding me with the promise of the garden.
*
Thank you so much for reading this anthology of the most recent Word Not World Series, this was our largest session so far, and it is so exciting to see! As always, thank you for your support, and please share your favorite piece below!
(To join this Saturday’s session in real time, follow my Instagram @enis.st.sparrow)